From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali script is an abugida, i.e. its vowelgraphemes are mainly realized not as independent letters, but as diacritics attached to its consonant letters. It is written from left to right and lacks distinct letter cases. It is recognizable, as other Brahmic scripts, by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together which is known as মাত্রাmatra. The Bengali script is however less blocky and presents a more sinuous shape.

The Bengali script evolved from the Siddhông script, which belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts. In addition to differences in how the letters are pronounced in the different languages, there are some typographical differences between the version of the script used for Assamese language and that used for Bengali language.

Illustration:

rô is represented as র in Bengali, and as ৰ in Assamese.

Assamese script has an additional character sounding wô represented as ৱ, which is absent in the Bengali script.

The version of the script used for Manipuri language is also a different variation in that it uses the rô which is represented as র in Bengali script without the different representation as in Assamese script, but also uses the Assamese script character sounding wô represented as ৱ, which is absent in the Bengali script.

The consonant ক (kô) along with the diacritic form of the vowels অ, আ, ই, ঈ, উ, ঊ, ঋ, এ, ঐ, ও and ঔ.

The Bengali script has a total of 11 vowel graphemes, each of which is called a স্বরবর্ণsbôrôbôrnô "vowel letter". These sbôrôbôrnôs represent six of the seven main vowel sounds of Bengali, along with two vowel diphthongs. All of these are used in both Bengali and Assamese, the two main languages using the script.

"অ" ô/ɔ/ sounds as the default Inherent vowel for the entire Bengali script.

Even though the near-open front unrounded vowel[æ] is one of the seven main vowel sounds in the standard Bengali language, no distinct vowel symbol has been allotted for it in the script, since there is no [æ] sound in Sanskrit, the primary written language when the script was conceived. As a result, this sound is orthographically realized by multiple means in modern Bengali orthography, usually using some combination of এ, অ, আ and the jôfôla (diacritic form of the consonant grapheme য zô).

Two Vowel symbols for the vowel sound [i] and two symbols for the vowel sound [u]. This redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had a short ই [i] and a long ঈ [iː], and a short উ [u] and a long ঊ [uː]. These letters are preserved in the Bengali script with their traditional names, despite the fact that they are no longer pronounced differently in ordinary speech. These graphemes do serve an etymological function, however, in preserving the original Sanskrit spelling in tôtsômô Bengali words (i.e., words that were borrowed from Sanskrit).

The grapheme called ঋri does not really represent a vowel phoneme in Bengali, rather the consonant-vowel combination রি /ri/. Nevertheless, it is included in the vowel section of the inventory of the Bengali script. This inconsistency is also a remnant from Sanskrit, where the grapheme represents a retroflex approximant, a sound considered a vowel in Sanskrit.

When a vowel sound occurs at the beginning of a syllable or when it follows another vowel, it is written using a distinct letter. But when a vowel sound follows a consonant (or a consonant cluster), it is written with a diacritic which, depending on the vowel, can appear above, below, before or after the consonant. The diacritic cannot appear without a consonant. A diacritic form is named by adding a "-kar" to the end of the name of the corresponding vowel letter (see table below).

An exception to the above system is the vowel /ɔ/. This has no diacritic form, but is considered inherent in every consonant letter. To specifically denote the absence of this inherent vowel [ɔ] following a consonant, a diacritic called the হসন্তhôsôntô (্) may be written underneath the consonant.

Although there are only two diphthongs in the inventory of the script, the Bengali sound system has in fact many diphthongs.[nb 1] Most of these diphthongs are represented by juxtaposing the graphemes of their forming vowels, as in কেউkeu/keu/.

The table below shows the vowels present in the modern (i.e., since late nineteenth century) inventory of the Bengali alphabet, which has abandoned three historical vowels, ৠrri, ঌli, and ৡlli, traditionally placed between ঋri and এe.

Consonant letters are called ব্যঞ্জনবর্ণbênjônbôrnô "consonant letter" in Bengali. The names of these letters are typically just the consonant sound plus the inherent vowel অô. Since the inherent vowel is assumed and not written, most letters' names look identical to the letter itself (e.g. the name of the letter ঘ is itself ghô, not gh).

Some letters that have lost their distinctive pronunciation in Modern Bengali are called by a more elaborate name. For example, since the consonant phoneme /nɔ/ can be written ন, ণ, or ঞ (depending on the spelling of the particular word), these letters are not simply called nô; instead, they are called দন্ত্য নdôntyô nô ("dental n"), মূর্ধন্য ণmurdhônyô nô ("cerebral n"), and ঞীয়/ইঙniiyô/ingô. What was once pronounced and written as a retroflex nasal ণ [ɳɔ] is now pronounced as an alveolar [nɔ] (unless conjoined with another retroflex consonant such as ট, ঠ, ড and ঢ), although the spelling does not reflect this change.

The chart shows the consonants in relationship to their proscriptive phonetic articulation. Note that in actual usage, the letters do not necessarily keep their phonetic values (see notes and table below).

This table of the consonants shows the consonants in traditional "alphabetical" order (with "extra" letters and some conjuncts considered letters on their own at the end) and offers information about alternative forms, alternative names, alternative transliteration and transcriptions, actual usage and historical information.

The Bengali alphabet is not a phonetic alphabet. Pronunciations can vary greatly from their traditional Sanskritic values. Furthermore, there is no one-to-one correspondence with English phonetics, resulting in multiple formal and informal transcription or Romanization schemes. Notably, Bengali-to-English transcriptions can be quite different from English-to-Bengali transcriptions.

Was originally intended to be distinct from অন্তঃস্থ ব /ɔnt̪ost̪ʰo bɔ/—which takes the phonetic position of w or v /β/ or /ʋ/—but in Bengali, the two letters are identical in appearance and function. Still, they often appear separately in recitation of the alphabet.

In modern standard Bengali, this letter is pronounced identically to জ. In some regional dialects of Bengali, this letter might be pronounced as z /z/ or dz /dz/. য় (অন্তঃস্থ অ /ɔnt̪ost̪ʰo ɔ/) was created to fill in the former phonetic role of অন্তঃস্থ য /j/.

This letter evolved from the letter that represented the w or v /β/ or /ʋ/. However, in modern standard Bengali, it became identical in shape, name, and pronunciation to borgiyo ব /b/. It nevertheless kept its place in the alphabet well into the 20th century before being dropped as redundant. It is still commonly recited as in the alphabet, such that when the alphabet is spoken, ব appears twice, once as borgiyo bo and again as onthostho bo.

This letter is usually pronounced identically to ষ and স, except when it appears in certain consonant clusters, in which it is pronounced as s /s/ (example: স্ত্রী st̪ri). In some regional dialects, it might always be pronounced as s /s/

When অন্তঃস্থ য morphed into a double of বর্গীয় জ, this letter was created to take up the original phonetic role of য (/j/). In Bengali, this sound—the English "y" sound—appears as a transition in all vowel diphthongs. For example, the English word "yay" /jei/ is transcribed in Bengali as /ije/ with য় appearing as the middle /j/ element.

^ abcIn Bengali there are three letters for sibilants: শ, ষ, স. Originally all three had distinctive sounds. In modern Bengali, most common sibilant is /ʃ/ - originally represented by শ, but today স and ষ in words are often pronounced as /ʃ/. Other sibilant in Bengali is /s/ - originally represented by স, but today শ and ষ in words can sometimes be pronounced as /s/. Another, now extinct, sibilant was /ʂ/ - originally represented by ষ but can rarely be found today; ষ is mostly pronounced as /ʃ/ but in conjunction with other Retroflex consonants, original /ʂ/ sound can sometimes be found.

^In modern text often the name পশ্চাৎ দন্ত্যমূলীয় is used to describe retroflex letters more precisely.

^Original sound for ণ was /ɳɔ/ but in modern Bengali it is almost always pronounced /nɔ/ same as ন; except for in ligatures with other retroflex letters, original sound can be found

Up to four consecutive consonants not separated by vowels can be orthographically represented as a ligature called a "consonant conjunct" (Bengali: যুক্তাক্ষরjuktakkhôr or যুক্তবর্ণjuktôbôrnô). Typically, the first consonant in the conjunct is shown above and/or to the left of the following consonants. Many consonants appear in an abbreviated or compressed form when serving as part of a conjunct. Others simply take exceptional forms in conjuncts, bearing little or no resemblance to the base character.

Often, consonant conjuncts are not actually pronounced as would be implied by the pronunciation of the individual components. For example, adding লlô underneath শshô in Bengali creates the conjunct শ্ল, which is not pronounced shlô but slô in Bengali. Many conjuncts represent Sanskrit sounds that were lost centuries before modern Bengali was ever spoken, as in জ্ঞ, which is a combination of জjô and ঞnô, but is not pronounced jnô, Instead, it is pronounced ggô in modern Bengali. Thus, as conjuncts often represent (combinations of) sounds that cannot be easily understood from the components, the following descriptions are concerned only with the construction of the conjunct, and not the resulting pronunciation.

As the last member of a conjunct, ব bô can hang on the vertical line under the preceding consonants, taking the shape of ব bô (here referred to as বফলা bôfôla): গ্ব gbô ণ্ব nbô দ্ব dbô ল্ব lbô শ্ব shbô.

Some consonants are compressed (and often simplified) when appearing as the first member of a conjunct.

As the first member of a conjunct, the consonants ঙ ngô চ chô ড dô and ব bô are often compressed and placed at the top-left of the following consonant, with little or no change to the basic shape: ঙ্ক্ষ ngkkhô ঙ্খ ngkhô ঙ্ঘ ngghô ঙ্ম ngmô চ্চ chchô চ্ছ chchhô চ্ঞ chnô ড্ড ddô ব্ব bbô.

As the first member of a conjunct, ত tô is compressed and placed above the following consonant, with little or no change to the basic shape: ত্ন tnô ত্ম tmô ত্ব tbô.

As the first member of a conjunct, ম mô is compressed and simplified to a curved shape. It is placed above or to the top-left of the following consonant: ম্ন mnô ম্প mpô ম্ফ mfô ম্ব mbô ম্ভ mbhô ম্ম mmô ম্ল mlô.

As the first member of a conjunct, ষ shô is compressed and simplified to an oval shape with a diagonal stroke through it. It is placed to the top-left of the following consonants: ষ্ক shkô ষ্ট shtô ষ্ঠ shthô ষ্প shpô ষ্ফ shfô ষ্ম shmô.

As the first member of a conjunct, স sô is compressed and simplified to a ribbon shape. It is placed above or to the top-left of the following consonant: স্ক skô স্খ skhô স্ট stô স্ত stô স্থ sthô স্ন snô স্প spô স্ফ sfô স্ব sbô স্ম smô স্ল slô.

Some consonants are abbreviated when appearing in conjuncts, losing part of their basic shape.

As the first member of a conjunct, জ jô can lose its final downstroke: জ্জ jjô জ্ঞ ggô জ্ব jbô.

As the first member of a conjunct, ঞ nô can lose its bottom half: ঞ্চ nchô ঞ্ছ nchhô ঞ্জ njô ঞ্ঝ njhô.

As the last member of a conjunct, ঞ nô can lose its left half (the এ part): জ্ঞ ggô.

As the first member of a conjunct, ণ nô and প pô can lose their downstroke: ণ্ঠ nthô ণ্ড ndô প্ত ptô প্স psô.

As the first member of a conjunct, ত tô and ভ bhô can lose their final upward tail: ত্ত ttô ত্থ tthô ত্র trô ভ্র bhrô.

As the last member of a conjunct, থ thô can lose its final upstroke, taking the form of হ hô instead (this form is called খণ্ড-থ khôndô thô or "broken thô") : ন্থ nthô স্থ sthô. An exception is ম্থ mthô (see on the compressed forms part)

When serving as a vowel sign, উ u, ঊ u, and ঋ ri take on many exceptional forms.

উ u

When following গ gô or শ shô, it takes on a variant form resembling the final tail of ও o: গু gu শু shu.

When following a ত tô that is already part of a conjunct with প pô, ন nô or স sô, it is fused with the ত tô to resemble ও o: ন্তু ntu স্তু stu প্তু ptu.

When following র rô, and in many fonts also following the variant রফলা rôfôla, it appears as an upward curl to the right of the preceding consonant as opposed to a downward loop below: রু ru গ্রু gru ত্রু tru থ্রু thru দ্রু dru ধ্রু dhru ব্রু bru ভ্রু bhru শ্রু shru.

When following হ hô, it appears as an extra curl: হু hu.

ঊ u

When following র rô, and in many fonts also following the variant রফলা rôfôla, it appears as a downstroke to the right of the preceding consonant as opposed to a downward hook below: রূ ru গ্রূ gru থ্রূ thru দ্রূ dru ধ্রূ dhru ভ্রূ bhru শ্রূ shru.

1. Doubles the next consonant sound without the vowel (spelling feature) in দুঃখdukkhô, the k of খkhô was repeated before the whole খkhô
2. "h" sound at end, examples: এঃeh!, উঃuh!
3. Silent in spellings like অন্তঃনগরôntônôgôr meaning "Inter-city"
4. Also used as abbreviation like কিঃমিঃkimi, it is shortening the word কিলোমিটার "kilometer" as কিঃমিঃkimi which is similar to "k.m." in English., another example can be ডঃdôh stands for ডক্টরdôktôr "doctor"

It is used to derive two types of pronunciation in modern Bengali, like: in spellings like এ্যাকাডেমীêkademi it is pronounced /ækademi/, but in spelling like লক্ষ্যlôkkhyô it is pronounced as /lɔkkhe̯ɔ/
It is sometimes used as a diacritic to indicate non-Bengali vowels of various kinds in transliterated foreign words. For example, the schwa is indicated by a jôfôla, the French u and the German umlaut ü as উ্য uyô, the German umlaut ö as ও্য oyô or এ্য eyô, etc.

ê / yô

/æ/ or /e̯ɔ/

‍্ব

বফলাbôfôla

It is always silent in modern Bengali. It is used in spellings only which were adopted from Sanskrit, and are still preserved, and remains silent in pronunciation.
Example 1: স্বsbô is pronounced /ʃɔ/ rather than /sbɔ/ (omitting the b).
Example 2: ত্বtbô is pronounced /tɔ/ rather than /tbɔ/ (omitting the b)
and with any other consonant the "‌্ব" is silent, always omitting the b sound.

used for prolonging vowel sounds
Example1: শুনঽঽঽshunôôôô meaning "listennnn..." (listen), this is where the default inherited vowel sound ô in নnô is prolonged.
Example2: কিঽঽঽ?kiiii? meaning "Whatttt...?" (What?), this is where the vowel sound i which is attached with the consonant কkô is prolonged.

-

-

৺

ইশ্বারisshar

represents the name of a deity or also written before the name of a deceased person

-

-

ঀ

আঞ্জী / সিদ্ধিরস্তুanji /siddhirôstu

used at the beginning of texts as an invocation

-

-

ঃ-h and ং-ng are also often used as abbreviation marks in Bengali, with ং-ng used when the next sound following the abbreviation would be a nasal sound, and ঃ-h otherwise. For example ডঃ dôh stands for ডক্টর dôktôr "doctor" and নং nông stands for নম্বর nômbôr "number". Some abbreviations have no marking at all, as in ঢাবি dhabi for ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় Dhaka Bishbôbidyalôy "Dhaka University". The full stop can also be used when writing out English letters as initials, such as ই.ইউ. i.iu "E.U.".

The apostrophe, known in Bengali as ঊর্ধ্বকমা urdhbôkôma "upper comma", is sometimes used to distinguish between homographs, as in পাটা pata "plank" and পা'টা pa'ta "the leg". Sometimes a hyphen is used for the same purpose (as in পা-টা, an alternative of পা'টা).

ৎ (called খণ্ড-ত khôndô tô "broken tô") is always used syllable-finally and always pronounced as /t̪/. It is predominantly found in loan words from Sanskrit such as ভবিষ্যৎ bhôbishyôt "future", সত্যজিৎ sôtyôjit (a proper name), etc. It is also found in some onomatopoeic words (such as থপাৎ thôpat "sound of something heavy that fell", মড়াৎ môrat "sound of something breaking", etc.), as the first member of some consonant conjuncts (such as ৎস tsô, ৎপ tpô, ৎক tkô, etc.), and in some foreign loanwords (e.g. নাৎসি natsi "Nazi", জুজুৎসু jujutsu "Jujutsu", ৎসুনামি tsunami "Tsunami", etc.) which contain the same conjuncts. This is an over-production inconsistency, where the sound /t̪/ is realized by both ত and ৎ. This creates confusion among inexperienced writers of Bengali. There is no simple way of telling which symbol should be used. Usually, the contexts where ৎ is used need to be memorized, as these are less frequent. In the native Bengali words, syllable-final ত tô/t̪ɔ/ is pronounced /t̪/, as in নাতনি /nat̪ni/ "grand daughter", করাত /kɔrat̪/ "saw", etc.

Numbers larger than 9 are written in Bengali using a positional base 10 numeral system (the decimal system). A period or dot is used to denote the decimal separator, which separates the integral and the fractional parts of a decimal number. When writing large numbers with many digits, commas are used as delimiters to group digits, indicating the thousand (হাজার hajar), the hundred thousand or lakh (লাখ lakh or লক্ষ lôkkhô), and the ten million or hundred lakh or crore (কোটি kuti) units. In other words, going leftwards from the decimal separator, the first grouping consists of three digits, and the subsequent groupings always consist of 2 digits.

For example, the English number 17,557,345 will be written in traditional Bengali as ১,৭৫,৫৭,৩৪৫.

Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke দাড়ি dari (|), the Bengali equivalent of a full stop, have been adopted from western scripts and their usage is similar. Commas, semicolons, colons, quotation marks, etc. are the same as in English. The concept of using capital letters is absent in the Bengali script, hence proper names are unmarked.

An example of handwritten Bengali script. Part of a poem written by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 in Hungary.

Bengali text is written and read horizontally, from left to right. The consonant graphemes and the full form of vowel graphemes fit into an imaginary rectangle of uniform size (i.e. uniform width and height). The size of a consonant conjunct, regardless of its complexity, is deliberately maintained the same as that of a single consonant grapheme, so that diacritic vowel forms can be attached to it without any distortion. In a typical Bengali text, orthographic words, i.e., words as they are written, can be seen as being separated from each other by an even spacing. Graphemes within a word are also evenly spaced, but this spacing is much narrower than the spacing between words.

Unlike in western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter-forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra. The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example, the letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra, as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e. The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between the visible matra and an invisible baseline).

Grapheme

Percentage

আ

11.32

এ

8.96

র

7.01

অ

6.63

ব

4.44

ক

4.15

ল

4.14

ত

3.83

ম

2.78

According to Bengali linguist Munier Chowdhury, there are about 9 graphemes that are the most frequent in Bengali texts, shown with its percentage of appearance in the table in right.[5]

In the Bengali script, clusters of consonants are represented by different and sometimes quite irregular forms; thus, learning to read is complicated by the sheer size of the full set of letters and letter combinations, numbering about 350. While efforts at standardizing the alphabet for the Bengali language continue in such notable centres as the Bangla Academy at Dhaka (Bangladesh) and the Pôshchimbônggô Bangla Akademi at Kolkata (West Bengal, India), it is still not quite uniform as yet, as many people continue to use various archaic forms of letters, resulting in concurrent forms for the same sounds. Among the various regional variations within this script, only the Assamese and Bengali variations exist today in the formalized system.

It seems likely that the standardization of the alphabet will be greatly influenced by the need to typeset it on computers. The large alphabet can be represented, with a great deal of ingenuity, within the ASCII character set, omitting certain irregular conjuncts. Work has been underway since around 2001 to develop Unicodefonts, and it seems likely that it will split into two variants, traditional and modern. In this and other articles on Wikipedia dealing with the Bengali language, a Romanization scheme used by linguists specializing in Bengali phonology is included along with IPA transcription. A recent effort by the Government of West Bengal focused on simplifying Bengali orthography in primary school texts.

There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem.

The Romanization of Bengali is the representation of the Bengali language in the Latin script. There are various ways of Romanization systems of Bengali created in recent years which have failed to represent the true Bengali phonetic sound. While different standards for romanization have been proposed for Bengali, these have not been adopted with the degree of uniformity seen in languages such as Japanese or Sanskrit.[nb 2] The Bengali script has often been included with the group of Indic scripts for romanization where the true phonetic value of Bengali is never represented. Some of them are the "International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration" or IAST system (based on diacritics),[6] "Indian languages Transliteration" or ITRANS (uses upper case alphabets suited for ASCII keyboards),[7] and the National Library at Calcutta romanization.[8]

Clause 1: All human free-manner-in equal dignity and right taken birth-take do. Their reason and intelligence exist; therefore everyone-indeed one another's towards brotherhood-ly attitude taken conduct do should.

Translation

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

^In Japanese there exists some debate as to whether to accent certain distinctions, such as Tōhoku vs Tohoku. Sanskrit is well standardized, because the speaking community is relatively small, and sound change is not a large concern

^The natural pronunciation of the grapheme অ, whether in its independent (visible) form or in its "inherent" (invisible) form in a consonant grapheme, is /ɔ/. But its pronunciation changes to /o/ in the following contexts:

অ is in the first syllable and there is a ই /i/ or উ /u/ in the next syllable, as in অতি ôti "much" /ɔt̪i/, বলছি bôlchhi "(I am) speaking" /ˈboltʃʰi/

if the অ is the inherent vowel in a word-initial consonant cluster ending in rôfôla "rô ending" /r/, as in প্রথম prôthôm "first" /prɔt̪ʰɔm/

if the next consonant cluster contains a jôfôla "jô ending", as in অন্য ônyô "other" /onːo/, জন্য jônyô "for" /dʒɔnːɔ/

^Even though the near-open front unrounded vowel [æ] is one of the seven main vowel sounds in the standard Bengali language, no distinct vowel symbol has been allotted for it in the script, thought এ is used.

^/ʊ/ is the original pronunciation of the vowel ও, thought a secondary pronunciation /o/ entered the Bengali phonology due to Sanskrit influence. In modern Bengali both the ancient and adopted pronunciation of ও can be heard in spoken. Example: The word নোংরা (meaning "foul") is pronounced as /nʊŋra/ and /noŋra/ (Romanized as both nungra and nongra), both.